Why are we having night sleeps less than 11 hours long?

[gavinsmum1]

You know, the last couple of days have just been funny overall.  The afternoon naps two days ago and yesterday were and hour and 45 minutes respectively.  I gave him the same A time as normal and he short napped.  I even gave him Motrin yesterday to eliminate that as a factor, and it didn't matter.  Today I'll give him a touch more and see if that helps.  It's not really affecting night sleep except for the fact that he's a little more restless for the first part of the night and then he is sleeping 11.5 hours min, so go figure. 

[sherry lynn]

I wonder if you actually need to increase the A time? Maybe shorten it, but since it was going so well I wonder if it's time to just up it a little bit?

Glad you are getting such good nights though.

[sherry lynn]

Another thought, I wonder since he is sleeping so well at night if he just doesn't want more sleep during the day

[gavinsmum1]

This is really odd how it's been happening since he started cutting his 2nd tooth.  He is refusing to take more than 40 min in the afternoon, even with the lengthened A time.  His EASY looked like this today, this after going to bed at 7 last night:
wake 6:30
nap 10:30-11:05 (woke him as per usual)
nap 2:35- 3:15
bedtime 7:15 (he was obviously in pain and probably a little OT as he cried for about 10 minutes until I gave him some Motrin and then he was able to settle to sleep after a few min)

[huntersmummyinoz]

have been following along and havent had much to add. just thought i'd mention that average A time after a 30min am catnap is between 2 and 3 hrs. is it possible he actually needs less A time rather than more?? so hard to tell with the length of naps as could swing either way with OT/UT. how is he handling the A time leading up to pm nap and also after the nap?

[sherry lynn]

Thanks Kirry - I actually didn't realize she was still doing 4 hours A time after the am nap, until this mornings post

[gavinsmum1]

Normally, I've been putting him down 3 hours 15 min after the 35 min am nap, but the last three days he's woken after 1 hour or only 40 minutes! So yesterday I put him down after 3.5 hours and he did the same thing~ 40 min.  He's just not settling down for nap quickly if I put him down earlier than 3 hr 15 min. He's also not showing much signs of fatigue and he's not been fussy before that pm nap as well.  Previous to this teething episode he was doing at least an hour and 15 min for his pm nap.  I know that he's entered an OT cycle because he woke at 5:15 this morning (bedtime last night was 7:15 as he was in pain and very upset) and wouldn't go back to sleep until 6:30 and by that time I had to get up with him for the day, so I think he only slept for another 15-20 minutes.  I don't know what to do now that he's teething.  He's not settling for naps like he normally does, he's short napping, he's waking early and either settling back to sleep after about 15 min (like he did yesterday) or not for over an hour (like this morning) and I don't know what to do, either extend his A times slightly because I think he's going down UT or reduce them because of the teething (maybe that's what's giving him some trouble settling). We've tried pain meds before naps and it hasn't made a difference in terms of reducing pain, lengthening his nap.  I just don't know how to structure his day at all!!!
I made the decision to shorten this morning's nap by a few minutes so he's only had a 32 minute nap or so.  I think my plan was that he'd be even more tired for the pm nap and I could cut that A time shorter in hopes of a longer one this afternoon.  In writing this, I'm thinking that it's probably a fantastic idea to cut your child's sleep back even more when he's OT (loads of sarcasm directed at my own logic).  AHHHH what to do!

[sherry lynn]

How did the PM nap go?
It's really had to say, but often when they are teething the A time needs to be reduced. But, only you can judge by his behavior and what not whether or not it needs to be increased.
Just remember not to increase it to quickly either. You never (usually) want to increase it by more than 15 min every three days. Otherwise they will def. get over tired.
Curious to see how the day went. You never know, he may have been soooo tired that he actually slept, or resettled, they are crazy enough LO to do that sometimes

[gavinsmum1]

The afternoon nap was great (thankfully).  As I mentioned before, he napped for 30 min in the am and then I put him down for his pm nap 3 hours later and he slept for 1 hr 25 min.  He woke and, of course as it always is with days that are in the muck, we had the in-laws over and it was a busy 4 hours before bed.  We'll see how the night goes and when he wakes up in the morning.  His EASY looked like this today:
wake 5:15~ would not resettle until about 6:30
up for the day by 6:50
nap 10:05-10:35
nap 1:35-3:00
bedtime 7:10

Crossing my fingers that the morning wake-up is not tooooooo bad.   We'll try that 30 min nap tomorrow morning again with the 3 hour A time and see what happens.

[huntersmummyinoz]

glad he had a good nap for you. try it again for a couple of days and see how it goes, but if you think he is spiralling into an OT cycle you could switch it up for a day or two (back to long am and pm catnap) just to let him catch up on some sleep and then go back to what you are doing now. some mummies have found success with this to stop OT setting in, just dont stick there too long if the short am/long pm has been mostly working for you tho

[sherry lynn]

I'm hoping the night was ok. I know Lyle would have been fine with that routine. But, he can usually handle a longer PM A time. I think there is something to the first two A times. The fact that he went down at 3h15m for the first A time tells me that that one might also be a little too long.
This is the "usual" routine for the 30 min am catnap.
wake up
A time 3h30m
30 min nap
3-4 hours A time (usually a lot closer to 3-3.5)
A time before bed 3-4 hours

[gavinsmum1]

Well, the night was not too good, but it's hard to tell if it was from his EW last night and relatively late bedtime because of teething pain, or if it was just from teething pain.  He was up 4:15 for about 15 minutes rolling around and blabbing to himself.  Then he went back to sleep until about 5:50 and did not resettle.  I put him down for nap earlier than usual at 9:40 and he settled right away.  I plan to wake him at 10:10 and then put him down at around 1:10 for his afternoon nap.  I'm hoping that it wasn't just a fluke yesterday and that he naps for at least 1 hour 20 min this afternoon.  I'm just looking to have his wake-up settle around 6:30 and then have bedtime between 7-7:20 or so.  It's going to be a while before I have these A times sorted out.  I was just thinking about how his routine was a month ago and how weird it is now.  For instance, last month he was waking at 6:30, going down for nap around 11 and then sleeping for 1 hour 15 minutes, catnap around 4-4:35 and then bedtime by 7:15 or so.  The A time he was handling in the am was so much longer.  I hope that this is the right route and that I'm not making things harder for myself in the transition.  My eldest at J's age was doing two 1 hour naps in the day and then when it came to transition he was going down for his one nap at like 11:00-12:30 and then going until bedtime at about 6:30 or 7:00.  So different!! But it was not a problem at all for his transition!! It went incredibly smooth!  (sigh)

[sherry lynn]

One of the main differences is you are cutting the nap. If you don't want to cut the nap you can go back to the longer A time in the morning, it's just not normally advised to do that if you are going to wake them because 30 min is so little of an A time.

When we were going through the 2-1 I did do days of a long AM nap also to overcome OT, but like Kirry said, I couldn't stay there too long, or I would start getting PM nap refusal. I think 3 days was about our max for a long morning nap. You could always try going back to the old routine and seeing how it goes, but didn't you start getting EW, and that's why you cut the morning nap? EW is probably the biggest danger of doing the long morning nap. Some little ones deal with it fine, others do not.

[gavinsmum1]

Yeah, we cut the am nap shorter to prevent the EW, but here we are again in EW but for teething and OT as a result of teething.  The afternoon nap was a solid hour and 25 min, so it appears that the A times are okay.  We've just got to get that wake up moved once again!!
Today's EASY
wake 5:50 (that's when I first heard him after the 4:15 wake-up)
nap 9:40-10:10
nap 1:10-2:35
bedtime 6:35

Sherry, have you got a suggestion for what I should be shooting for in terms of overall length of the day?  I know that's probably a tough one as I've got to get us settled into a nap pattern and then see what kinds of wake up times I'm getting, but maybe you've got a general idea of what babies are doing at this age based on J's amount of nap time? I don't know... Thanks again for keeping on top of our little corner of the forum!

[sherry lynn]

I do know the "average" :  Typical Amounts of Day and Night Sleep

So based on the average, he should have slept in until 6 this morning. However, if you know your guys is an 11 hour a night guy, then you can't be too surprised if he woke at 5:30, with a 6:30 bedtime.

But, you also have to go by your LO. Lyle never really did over 11 hours. So 11 hours is our "ideal" although for a long time I've been lucky to get 10.5. It used to be because I know I was letting him sleep to much during the day. Lately, I can only guess teeth

So, we'll just have to try get back on track with J's sleep. Hopefully, he slept a little more for you last night and then you will be able to push bedtime back out. If you do suspect OT and teething, go ahead and try to let him sleep in the AM. You'll only know what will happen by trying. Maybe give him a few days to catch up.


Teething will definitely mess things up.